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by gayandmagical (smoltae)



Series: arthur comes home. [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 16:49:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20439287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smoltae/pseuds/gayandmagical
Summary: little domestic snippets from the lives of arthur and merlin, in the modern world.





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**Author's Note:**

> jsksajs this is the impromtu-est of fics, hope you enjoy !!

Arthur fits easily into the modern world. Luxury has always suited him and even after all these years, modern things feel like luxury to Merlin. Arthur Pendragon was born into prestige and looked his best with a luxuriant trimmed fur cape wrapped around his shoulders and a crown on his hair-

(But the most beautiful he ever looked to Merlin was in day old villager’s clothing when he had to disguise himself. With soot smudged on his face and his well worn battle cloak and scuffed boots and a tired smile and eyes that glinted with the terrible ale the village pub had to offer. And something else. His eyes often shone like that when they looked at Merlin.)

\- and these were his little luxuries now. Warm water on demand. Ice cubes and a farewell to lukewarm alcohol. No more scrolls that were made of tremulous ancient paper that, more often than anyone liked to admit, just crumbled at the slightest touch. Merlin wonders how much poetry Arthur didn’t get to read because of that. He wonders how many life changing spells had disappeared into dust that way. Now his lover consumes volumes and volumes of histories and novels and poetry. His guilty pleasure is Shakespeare. He loathes Chaucer. He adores Toni Morrison, even if he still doesn’t understand her modern language and the horrors she speaks of.

Merlin has been trying to sum up the history of the world in short bursts of conversation every night. There has been much progress but there has also been so much pain and terror and he sees the same question he agonised over all these years echoed on his prince’s face. _Why did he not come sooner?_ But they don’t talk about that. They don’t talk about the years of loneliness or the possibility that in a short human lifetime, Merlin may face that again. They speak about everything under the sun- they were always free with their words with each other and now, nothing stands between them- but never those things.

-

Arthur loves grocery shopping.

The first time Merlin took him to Waitrose, Arthur paused in the doorway for a full twenty seconds in absolute shock. Then he turned his head- his expression was full of wonder, Merlin would never admit it but it was absolutely _adorable_\- and asked simply, “Sorcery?”

That was Arthur’s explanation for nearly everything the first few days. Microwave? Sorcery. Lightbulb? Sorcery. Cars? Advanced Sorcery.

“No, you big oaf,” he pressed a firm kiss to the corner of his mouth because an adorable Arthur made for a weak Merlin and he could _do_ this now, “It’s capitalist overproduction.” And then he dragged the other man in, ignoring his absolute confusion.

He thought Arthur’s amazement at the seemingly endless aisles and colorful baked goods and giant candy wall would die after the first trip, but three months in, he still seems determined to spend Merlin’s (long, long) life’s savings at the grocery mart.

“We absolutely _do _need more of that macaroni and cheese,” Arthur insisted, piling the blue boxes up, “Am I expected to eat your awful cooking every night?”

“Twenty! Kraft mac ’n’ cheese cartons! You aren’t an American college student, Arthur,” Merlin doesn’t take them out of the cart, though. He feels a tinge of disappointment. “I thought you liked the pork yesterday? You love pork.”

Arthur grabs at his hand where it’s resting on their cart. “I did like it. I’m sorry.” He’s learning to apologise, now. Merlin isn’t as immune to harsh words now, not from the man he’s been longing for for centuries. He then takes out four of the acidic yellow death traps encased in a blue box and offers a cheeky grin and Merlin decides that’s concession enough. He makes a quiet promise to himself to actually try out one of those mac ’n’ cheese recipes that keep showing up on his instagram feed. Yes, he has one of those, even if he is what his students call a ‘dinosaur’ with technology.

To make up for the brief sadness Arthur felt he had caused- he said sorry again, once in the frozen food aisle- he spends two pounds of the allowance the two of them had agreed he needed until he found a way to work in this new world. He buys them two berry scones that they eat sitting in the car park with their sides pressed close together, Merlin’s legs tossed carelessly over his prince’s. Contentment.

-

Arthur startles awake to the sound of glass shattering. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence. The young girl who drops off their newspaper in the morning apparently is blind to the strange ceramic gnomes Merlin _insists _on replacing on their porch every time they break. And neither of them have the heart to ever reprimand her, instead she walks away every week with a fresh batch of cookies and yet another new gnome finds its place in the Emrys-Pendragon home.

Merlin, from next to him, just groans in response to the sound. His eyes don’t even twitch open.

Arthur presses a rough hand across his face, trying to wake up. “It’s your turn to wake up, _Mer_lin,” he snarks, even though he knows his lover will scarcely wake in the face of an apocalypse, let alone their near daily broken gnome. He disentangles from the tangle of limbs they always end up with, pulls on the (fuzzy, red) bathrobe tossed on the ground beside the bed and tip toes to the front door.

Once he picks up the glass pieces of what was once a gnome named Harold, tosses him into the bin and heads back into bed in record time. It’s Saturday and he gets to keep Merlin all morning, just warm and familiar and beloved, beside him.

Arthur gently bites his pale thigh on his way up, then kisses his way up Merlin’s body. “_Too early, Artie_,” he hears the gentle protestation and grins to himself. The younger- older?- man will deny using that nickname when he’s back to consciousness.

Arthur burrows back into that most comfortable of positions with his head buried into Merlin’s chest and decidedly, falls back asleep.

-

“Is that your boyfriend, Professor?”

He’s struggling with the projector as usual, his presentation on the Indian Revolt of 1857 lost somewhere in the depths of his laptop. Merlin glances up at that question from Zauri, one of his boldest students and his eyes catch on his desktop background. It’s a picture of Arthur sitting in the little clearing behind his house that has a breathtaking blossom of wildflowers every spring, face lit up in a smile and eyes slightly off the camera, looking up. Looking at Merlin.

He smiles to himself, and then to Zauri and says nothing.

-

Merlin wakes up gasping, reaching instinctively for Arthur’s warmth in the bed.

He doesn’t find it. And _no, no, no, _please_, no_ and he’s just on the verge of tipping into a panic when a hand comes to rest on his. Merlin doesn’t need to think, he knows that hand, he burrows himself into the man beside him.

“Where did you go?” and he’s crying now, his face is wet and his throat choked up till it’s painful and every breath hurts. He presses his lips against Arthur’s next, just a point of contact to keep him grounded as if their entire bodies aren’t pressed together now. “Don’t leave me, please, don’t leave me again.”

And then Arthur’s cradling him and apologising and pressing kisses to his skin and Merlin falls asleep there, in his arms, safe. Not alone. When he wakes up, tears have dried uncomfortably on his face and his jaw aches a little but Arthur is there beside him. Mouth hanging open, snoring lightly. Lit up by the morning light filtering in through the window. He looks like some kind of heavenly being, even just lying there; there’s royalty and a great destiny in his blood, after all. Merlin doesn’t believe in a god but if there is a higher power out there, he sends his thanks their way.

-

The smoke alarm in their house has been made obsolete since Arthur stole the batteries to use for the TV remote but he’s sure it would be beeping in that terrifying way it does if he hadn’t.

Merlin is baking.

His former manservant, sorcerer extraordinaire and love of multiples lifetimes is a person of many talents. He could show kindness even in the darkest times. He could charm an entire room and trick his way out of any situation. He could almost speak to animals and he was a fair hand at piano. Arthur remembers clearly the first time he heard Merlin sing, somewhere in the throes of a fever. He was like a nightingale, sitting by his bedside and lighting up the room with his song.

But Merlin, for all his talents, has none in baking.

“Don’t _touch _the hot pan, you idiot!” Arthur grabs the oven mitts lying on the counter and snags the smoking pan before Merlin can touch it, heart beating a little off key at the momentary panic that the other man could have burnt his hand a second ago.

“Oh, like you know _so_ much about how kitchens and cooking work, _King Prat_,” Merlin comments snidely, “Remind again of a single time you’ve cooked a meal in your life.”

“Yesterday! The Food Network recipe!”

“Your _other _life.”

Arthur opens his mouth to speak but- “No, you helping me by stirring the stew occasionally when we were travelling in the woods doesn’t count.” He holds his hands up in surrender. Then he moves a little closer, crowds Merlin back into the granite countertop.

“Thank you, Merlin,” he presses onto his neck gently.

“What was that?”

“Thank-” He punctuates his words with a kiss to Merlin’s collarbone, “- you.”

He feels Merlin smile against his hair, tighten arms around him. “Careful Pendragon, all that sweet talking and you might just make me fall in love with you.”

Something clenches tight in his chest and it isn’t strange to him, not anymore, not the way it was back in Camelot. He knows what to call it now, that warmth in his heart; just for Merlin.

“I thought I already made that happen, damnit.”

“I _like _you. Six out of ten. If you hit an eight, I’ll bake again.” It’s said like a threat. Merlin’s breath is warm against his forehead.

He protests loudly at that but his words are swallowed up with a kiss and soon Merlin’s resting on the counter, his legs wrapped around Arthur’s waist.

They eat lightly smoking apple pie for dinner, right out of the pan with far too much whipped cream piled onto half of it.

-

“We’re not watching Mindhunter tonight!”

“I’ll protect you if any killers come in, don’t you worry.”

“Well, my magic’s barely good for parlour tricks now and you haven’t trained in over a _thousand years._ We’re basically sitting ducks.”

A loud groan echoes through the dimly lit bedroom.

“You just want to watch The Great British Bake-Off again, don’t you?”

Merlin snuggles in close. It’s answer enough.

-

They have their own sides of the bed. Merlin on the right and Arthur on the left. But they usually just migrate onto a single pillow- pressed close together- even when it’s hot and sweaty with the summer and it’s just edging on discomfort. It’s never discomfort when it’s the two of them, not really.

Merlin remembers once, a drunken Arthur had told him that his bed was too big in palace, that he felt lonely every night. He remembers the sudden hope that had risen in his chest, the careless desire to be the one to offer comfort in that cold, to be the one to take away that loneliness from the person he loved most. But that hadn’t been his role to play, not in Camelot, not then.

He gets to have him now. He rests here, beside Arthur every night. Their bodies bracket each other like they’re made for each other. In a way, Merlin knows they kind of were. But it’s not just destiny that keeps them here, together. He _chooses _Arthur, chooses him in everything he does. And in every whispered _I love you _and gentle kiss and promise to _stay_, to never leave, he knows Arthur chooses him right back.

**Author's Note:**

> wellll these two were calling to me again and this fic happened. hope this random collection of the Supremely In Love Dynamic Duo that is merthur brought you some entertainment !!


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